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Yet it was on the battlefields in Europe during World War II where Inouye first earned distinction. At a time when the federal government placed thousands of Japanese Americans into relocation camps, Inouye and his Asian-American peers petitioned the White House for the right to serve in the military. He dropped out of school to join the Army's 442nd Regimental Combat Team, made up of "nisei," or Americans whose parents were born in Japan.

In 1944, Inouye narrowly avoided death in France when a bullet struck him in the chest and hit two silver dollars he carried in his shirt pocket for good luck.

He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism in 1945 during a battle in Italy near San Terenzo. Inouye and his unit were pinned down by fire. Already wounded by a bullet to his midsection, Inouye was lobbing hand grenades at the enemy when his right arm was almost completely severed by an enemy grenade launcher.

With his left arm, Inouye reached over to pry the live grenade out of his debilitated arm. Hours later while receiving treatment at an Army hospital, Inouye's right arm was amputated.

During his recovery in the hospital, Inouye became friends with a fellow American soldier named Bob Dole -- who later became a U.S. senator from Kansas. Inouye and Dole would often work together on issues when Dole was Senate Republican leader. Dole also lost the use of his right arm in World War II.

More than a half-century after the battle at Terenzo, President Clinton awarded Inouye and 21 other Japanese-American soldiers the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest honor for valor. At the ceremony in 2000, Clinton said the nation owes "an unrepayable debt" to Inouye and his fellow Asian-American soldiers. "Rarely has a nation been so well-served by a people it ill-treated," Clinton said.

Inouye won election to a ninth Senate term in 2010 with 75% of the vote.

Based on Senate service, Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont is next in line after Inouye and will become the Senate president pro tempore.

Inouye is survived by his wife, Irene, a son, Ken, and a granddaughter named Maggie. Inouye's first wife, Margaret, died in 2006.